Portrait of Doctor Felix Rey Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Description of Vincent van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Ray

Van Gogh painted Portrait of Dr. Ray after the following story:

In December 1888, when Gauguin went out for a walk, he heard a hurried step behind him. He turned around, saw Van Gogh and ran, as he later recounted that he saw a razor in his hand. It is not known what the artist wanted to tell him, but when the artist arrived home, in a fit of desperation he cut off his earlobe with the razor.

The artist was admitted to the hospital, he was so agitated he could not behave normally, so he was placed in the ward of the insane.

Although a severed artery caused a large amount of blood to rush out, the wound was not serious. Dr. Ray was going to reattach the lobe, which had been cut off, but the delivery was severely delayed, so it was no longer possible to perform the operation.

In appreciation of Dr. Rey, for his compassion for the sick Van Gogh, the artist emphasized his compassion for his fellow man in the painting.

The range of colors in this work is very colorful and vivid, so symbolically, as he usually did in his paintings, he expresses his admiration for this doctor.

The artist depicted the foxglove flower on most of his canvases (this plant helped him get rid of his stressful state for a while, and in this way he expressed his gratitude to him). Van Gogh’s flower was yellow and the foxglove was red.

And "Portrait of Dr. Ray" was painted by him in yellow-green tones.

But the character of the painting himself had a bad opinion about the work of this artist, he did not like this work, and so it was first lying around in the attic, and then they covered a hole in the barn with it.

The most striking thing was that over the years, this doctor really began to look more and more like his own portrait. Today you can see it if you visit the Museum of Fine Arts in the capital.